


2010s_mixtape.mp3

by mvrim5l



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VIII, Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Rating May Change, Rating will change, Slow burn ish?, Strifehart, it's actually set in 2010, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29177784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mvrim5l/pseuds/mvrim5l
Summary: It's not every day that you turn 18, and it's definitely not every day that you are dragged to a club on your birthday and end up getting a drink from the most eyed boy at said club.Aka Squall and Cloud meet at a dance club on Squall's birthday and can't stop thinking about it.
Relationships: Cloud/Leon (Kingdom Hearts), Leon (Kingdom Hearts)/Squall Leonhart/Cloud Strife, Squall Leonhart/Cloud Strife
Kudos: 7





	1. Don't Stop The Music

It was 3:15PM, judging by how crowded the café was. And by crowded, it meant that there were probably five people, two of those immersed on their computers working in college essays (and possibly failing to concentrate on those). It was a normal day; the sun shone as bright as every day, the birds still sang, and the world was going on with its own thing. Except that the day before Squall had just turned eighteen, and now his colleague and friend, Aerith, had been bugging him his whole shift to take him out to a club.

“C’mon! You’re finally eighteen! We have to celebrate!” she kept saying after so many rejections from Squall.

“And…? Everybody turns eighteen every day,” he sighed and put his hands on Aerith’s shoulders. “Aerith, I appreciate your friendship, I really do, but you don’t need to take me to some club just because I turned eighteen,” he tried to sound as kind as he could. A smile on his lips. Squall released the girl and leaned on the counter; his expression now apologetic. “And besides, I still have some college assignments to finish this weekend.”

“You’re no fun,” Aerith pouted. “Please, please, Squall, just this once!” She had both of her hands together like a prayer, begging for her friend to give in. “My girlfriend and her best friend are also going, and I promised them that I was going to convince you to go!”

Squall raised an eyebrow. So Aerith had already been promising to someone else his presence on the said night on said club. The only thing that she forgot is that Squall took his college and work way too seriously to have any time for nighttime activities that didn’t include homework. But then she kept staring at Leonhart with those puppy eyes, hoping that something would change inside his heart and he would decide to go along with her whole mischievous plan. Well, it had been a while since Aerith had been trying to get Squall out of his tiny room and his books to meet her girlfriend and maybe make some friends that weren’t also buried in books.

After what seemed like 5 minutes but most probably it was only a few seconds, Squall sighed. “Fine!” he had almost a half-smile. He must have been crazy to agree to this, he had two assignments due next week, but apparently, Aerith’s puppy eyes’ plea was more important. “I’ll go to this club.”

“Yes!” Aerith almost screamed happy to get what she wanted. Her smile was almost falling off of her face because of how big it got. She was hugging Squall with all her strength – which wasn’t a little amount of strength, she was almost breaking him thanks to her Pilates class. She let go of him and in a hurry got her notepad inside of her apron’s pocket and wrote the club’s address and a time on it. She tore the page apart and gave it to Squall. “Here’s the club address, but since it’s kind of close, this is time I’ll be stopping by your apartment and picking you up so we can go walking together,” she pointed things out as she spoke and then smiled at the boy. “Okay?”

Squall had paid close attention to the details and looking at her smile once again he could see why he couldn’t have said no to her. “Okay.”

It was 11:15PM judging by how quiet the apartment wasn’t. As usual, on Friday nights, Seifer, Squall’s roommate, had some people over for whatever that was. They would usually get to the apartment, drink, play some games and maybe go to some club or get into a fight somewhere else. As much as Leonhart loved fighting, he had a very serious appointment with his college assignments on Friday nights, except for this one. Squall was inside his tiny room checking himself in the mirror and waiting for Aerith’s text saying that she was outside. But while he had time, Squall questioned every fashion choice he ever made in life.

If you asked him, yes, Squall thought that he was an attractive guy, he had had a girlfriend before and kissed some girls if that counted for something, but he had never been to a club in his life. Was the leather jacket too much? Was his white tee not good enough? Were his jeans okay? Doubting himself, he decided that adding a belt or two, or three, would make everything better. As he buckled his third belt and asked himself if he should put the fourth belt, his Samsung Corby rang with Aerith’s text. There was no more time for belts, Squall checked himself in the mirror one last time fixing his hair before going out with only his cellphone and wallet to meet Aerith outside.

“Can’t believe I finally convinced you to get out of that room,” she laughed as her friend approached her. She looked at his outfit and suddenly stopped her eyes at the sight of more than one belt. “What are those?”

Needless to say, Squall was nervous enough by himself and that look from Aerith did not help at all. “Belts.”

Aerith stared kind of surprised and not amused at his face for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders. Fashion was bold these days, jeans everywhere and nowhere at the same time, maybe Squall was going to be the next trend-setter with those belts, who knows? But in the meantime, Aerith chose to play with her friend’s fashion choices. “If you say so,” she said as the girl dressed in a pink dress and jeans started walking to the said club.

Leonhard stayed astonished for a second before catching up with his friend. “What you do mean by that?!”

“Nothing” she smiled mischievous provoking the younger boy and making him even more anxious about this whole thing.

It was 11:30PM judging by the time that his phone displayed. Squall had never been to a club, so he could not judge the time by how crowded it was or wasn’t. Both him and Aerith were by the bouncer, as he gave his ID to security, Aerith made sure to point it out that he had just turned eighteen a couple of days ago making the said bouncer say some half-ass happy birthday to Squall, to which he answered a half-ass thank you.

As for his first time in a club, Leonhart was overwhelmed. Aerith led him inside as Black Eyed Peas played as loud as it could through the sweaty air of the club. A lot of lights danced through the whole room along with people smiling and shaking their bodies along with those lights and the rhythm. Somewhere in the back of the room, there was steady lights and a pack of people with drinks, Squall guessed that that was the bar. It was dark, it was loud, it was sweaty, and it was different than everything the golden boy was used to. As Aerith led him to the said bar, they had to squeeze between dancing bodies, and the thrill of such loud music along with briefly touching so many different people to get to the other side of the dance floor made Squall’s senses more hyped and at the same time more numb in a way which he could never describe. He could feel “I Gotta Feeling” mix with his heartbeats and move his whole being and his cells along to its beat.

After many silent apologies to the people they were squeezing by, Aerith finally stopped at the bar, still holding Squall’s hands so he would not get lost in the crowd. While the boy was still dazed by this whole new experience, the girl asked for two drinks for them before finding her girlfriend in that crowd. Before Leonhart could even notice, Aerith turned to him holding two cups and offering him one of those. She smiled sweetly as she leaned over to almost scream at Squall’s ear so he could hear anything, “C’mon, birthday boy, here’s your first drink.”

He half-smiled as he got the drink from her hand. “Here it goes, I guess,” he said before raising his class to cheer and them finally starting to drink. Aerith smiled and drank as well. At first, it was sweet, and then sour, and then it burned a little from the alcohol, and then it was fine. He did not die. It was good. He kept looking at that cup as if he could discover what was in there just by looking.

“So, what did you think?” Aerith asked with a curious smile as, again, she leaned in so he could hear anything that she said.

He looked at her and then at his cup and then again at Aerith. And then smiled as he also leaned in to say something audible. “It’s good.”

She laughed, happy that at least up until now his friend was enjoying it. “Glad to provide you some good times.” She took some more sips of her own drink as Squall did the same, they both enjoying the music. And then suddenly she got a hold of his hand again to push him through the crowd again. “Let’s find Tifa!” she almost screamed so Leonhart would be aware of where they were going. “She said she would be by the middle of the dance floor to the right,” Aerith said to herself while searching through the pack of moving bodies, suddenly spotting some blonde spikes and smiling to herself. Thank god her girlfriend had brought that boy along with her so Aerith would find them. She tugged at Squall’s arm as if to hurry him and warn him that she had found her target.

After some more squeezing and silent apologies, Aerith tapped on a girl’s shoulder with a sly smile on her face. The girl had long black hair and crop tops, as she turned Squall could see her red eyes as her face lit up by seeing Aerith. She squeezed the pink girl with affection and then leaned in screaming something so Aerith would hear, then Aerith screaming back and pointing at Squall as if presenting him. He smiled.

“This is Tifa, my girlfriend,” she screamed to Leonhart. He nodded and shook Tifa’s hand glad to meet her.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Squall,” he screamed back at Tifa. She nodded as well.

“Nice to meet you, Squall, this is Cloud,” she replied motioning to the boy a few steps away who seemed way too interested in not paying attention to whatever was happening.

“He’s really chatty, huh,” Squall pointed ironically.

“You get used to it, Cloud is actually a really nice person!” Aerith promised with a smile, and she almost never lied, so who was Squall to doubt her?

The birthday-boy decided to sip his drink as a response, there was not much to say. Cloud didn’t seem interested in knowing him, so why bother? Yea, he was a pretty boy that definitely knew how to move in this club, but was that really worth the trouble of screaming something to him in the middle of Black Eyed Peas? Nah.

Tifa went on to scream something to the blonde and elbow him as a warning, Cloud winced, then sighed, and then finally came closer.

“Sorry, I’m Cloud, nice to meet you,” he said sounding like a kid that just got scolded by his parents, which was… fairly accurate. “Happy Birthday, Squall.”

And for a second there Leonhard caught Cloud’s eyes, they were as blue as a pool he could drown in, even with the club lights making everything change every five seconds. In those mere seconds, Squall was able to gather a few things about Cloud: he was prettier up close, he was a bit shorter and definitely older than Squall and he could definitely kick the shit out of him if he wanted to.

“Thank you,” he shouted back receiving a nod as a response, and then just like that Cloud decided to stand next to Squall in the circle-ish formation the group was. It was tight, but one could do very well with a pretty boy next to him.

Aerith smiled as she saw that the evening wasn’t lost and made sure to gasp and then sing along to Britney song that queued right after that.

After the fifth Lady Gaga song, Squall decided that maybe it was time to take a trip to the bar to give his lungs a rest. He was perched on a wall checking the time on his cellphone, about 00:30AM, not much time had gone by.

To kill time he went on to check the weather for the next day as suddenly a drink entered his vision. He looked up to find the one pretty boy offering him the treat. Squall obviously had a confused look on his face as he arched one eyebrow.

“It’s your birthday drink,” Cloud explained, “and an apology for before, you know, when I ignored you,” he sounded again like a kid who just got scolded, but at least felt embarrassed now for his actions.

Squall took the drink, briefly brushing his fingers along Cloud’s. “Thanks, you didn’t have to do this, I know it’s kind of weird to have to meet your friend’s girlfriend’s friend,” he then took a sip.

Cloud interpreted that as an invite to perch on the wall next to Squall for some reason, so there he was, mixing his own drink while stealing glances at the birthday boy.

“Did Tifa make you buy a drink for me? Because you didn’t have to, especially if she talked you into this,” he said enjoying the drink nonetheless.

The pretty boy looked kind of shocked by the question. “Uh, no, _I_ wanted to buy you a drink, is that not allowed anymore?” he then looked to his own drink. “But Tifa _did_ mention that I should talk to you properly.”

“Huh, well, if it makes you feel better I think Aerith said that I should talk to you more too, although I’m not sure, I don’t know many Britney songs so I can’t be sure if that was just her singing the lyrics along or actually talking to me.”

Cloud snorted, amused by the comment. “That does sound like her, but also, you don’t know Britney? Are you even gay?”

“Actually, I’m not gay.”

Cloud looked so ashamed and embarrassed like he wanted the earth to open and swallow him. “Oh, I mean, I just assumed because you know, you came with Aerith to a _gay_ club and I thought I saw you stare at m-“

“Relax, I’m bisexual, I was just messing with you.”

“Oh, yeah, cool,” Cloud finally decided to shut up and take a big sip at his drink to prevent him from embarrassing himself anymore in front of a hot bisexual man.

The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable as both boys keep stealing glances at each other, unsure what to say after that. At this point at least one song had gone by, leaving them listening to Rihanna. Cloud looked once, twice and in the third time, he bit his lip struggling to open his damn mouth.

“So….” He said grabbing Squall’s attention. Those grey eyes for sure did a hell of a job of pressuring Cloud and making him want to shut up. “Do you wanna dance? It’s not Britney, so you don’t have to worry about the lyrics,” he tried shrugging as if to make a point of his joke.

“Sure, why not?”

Well, for a first, because Cloud was a much more talented dancer than he let on, and second because Squall found it quite hard to keep his eyes away from the swinging hips, especially if no Aerith was screaming “It’s Britney, bitch” in his ear. And he was not the only one who had eyes upon the pretty blonde, it seemed like the whole club was kind of into the pretty boy tortured beauty that exhaled from Cloud. Squall suddenly felt kind of self-conscious as he was the only one who had the blonde as a dance partner and he was no good with keeping up to the beat of pop songs.

“There you go again, staring at me,” Cloud cut Squall’s own delusion and his eyes snapped right back to those blue ones, a smile playing on his face. “Good to know that I please the bisexual crowd as well.”

All too conscious of Cloud acknowledging him, Squall turned his face embarrassed of being caught up. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know how to flirt or address his own interest in Cloud’s hips, it’s just that it has been a while and he was never in a club setting. Hell, he’d dated Rinoa for his whole Junior and Senior year, as well as for a month into college when they decided maybe distance wasn’t the best way to have a relationship. According to his own math, and he was good at math, it had been a whole three years since he flirted with a boy. He looked back at Cloud, opening, and closing his mouth, deciding that maybe it was best to keep it that way.

“Hey, I was just joking, I didn’t mean it lik-“

“Hey, pretty boys! How is it going?” Aerith interrupted Cloud by hugging him from behind and cutting off their conversation, it’s almost as if she’s a psychic for knowing at which point to save people from awkward conversations. “Cloudy here stole you from me on your birthday night! Thought I would come to check up on how’s your evening going,” she winked at Squall.

“It’s been great, thanks, Aerith,” he smiled as if something had lifted off his shoulders.

“Great! I’m gonna leave boys to it, then!” winking at Cloud as if she knew something Squall didn’t (which probably was everything), she vanished to whenever Tifa probably was.

If Squall had looked probably three seconds earlier, he would have caught Cloud blushing while he groaned. “You know what? This night has been far too long, I think I’m going home.”

“Wait- what?”

Cloud started to walk through the club towards the exit as Squall was right behind him, trying to find a reason why he was leaving so early (was it really early?).

“What about Tifa? And Aerith?”

“They will be fine without me, trust me,” Cloud laughed. And suddenly he turned to look at the birthday boy, almost making him bump into the blonde boy. “Why are you so interest though? We just shared a drink,” he raised an eyebrow.

Although Squall had been faced with a lot of difficult decisions throughout his life, this was the one that caught him by surprise.

“Well, I-“ a moment. “You see-“ a second. “You can’t drive after drinking.”

Cloud laughed. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t near enough to tickle me, don’t worry, I’ve driven being in a much worse state and survived,” which probably wasn’t really assuring, but whatever.

Squall was at a loss for words. All the excuses he could think of have failed so far and he doubted that saying anything else was going to make Cloud stay. And why the hell did he want Cloud to stay anyway?

“Whatever.”

“Goodnight, then,” and while Squall was probably way too distracted with his own thoughts, Cloud got close and went big before going home. He kissed the corner of Squall’s mouth, getting his attention and smiling before retreating, “birthday boy.”

And just like that Cloud vanished into the crowd, leaving a very confused, stunned, and embarrassed Squall behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 5? 6? years since I wrote any fanfic, especially in English, so I apologize for the quality of this, but this idea kept living rent-free in my mind and I had to write something about it!!!!  
> Hope you enjoyed it!!


	2. Poker Face

It’s been four days since that club night out. And it’s been 81 hours and 25 minutes since Squall’s mind started thinking about Cloud’s goodbye and hasn’t stopped. Honestly, it got to the point of ridiculous. There he was, doing his third macchiato in a row for god-knows-who, and the only thing on his mind was that damned almost kiss.

“Didn’t know you enjoyed macchiatos that much, I thought you were more a black coffee guy,” Aerith joked, almost scaring the life out of Squall as he almost dropped the macchiato order all over him and the floor. “Are you okay, Squall? You seem distracted and don’t even have your ‘don’t mess with me’ face anymore.”

“Sorry, just, uh, a lot on my mind, college and stuff, you know,” he partly lied as he left the macchiato on the pick-up counter. Usually talking about college would make people stop bothering you, but not Aerith.

“Are you sure? You seem off since that club night,” she analyzed his face, trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, or, in this case, Squall’s universe. “Oh my god! Did something happen that night? Did Cloud say something? Did Cloud _do_ something? Jeepers! _Did Cloud **kiss** you?_”

Squall had absolutely no idea how Aerith got all of that from his poker face, he didn’t even twitch his eyebrow or rolled his eyes! He then just stared at her, in his account not giving any clue about the almost kiss. “We didn’t kiss.”

“But something _did_ happen then! Oh my god, I knew it! Tifa owns me 5 bucks!”

“Wait, what-“

“So what did he do? Did you dance together? Did the grind on you?” she wiggled her eyebrows and then stopped, making faces while talking. “Wait, no, Cloud wouldn’t do that with someone I and Tifa knew. Did he hold your hand? No, no, wait! I know! He _almost_ kissed you!”

“How the hell do you do this? Do you have friends on the other side?” Honestly, Squall wouldn’t be surprised if being a medium was Aerith’s second job.

“So now what? You can’t stop thinking about Cloud?” she pouted.

“What? No. I’m not a 12-year-old girl, thanks,” he definitely was.

Without a bit of shame, Aerith reached into Squall’s back pocket and snatched his Samsung Corby. “What are you doing?” he tried to retrieve it but her Pilates always paid off. She dodges all of his attempts, held his hand so he wouldn’t attack again, and then put his phone unlocked at the contact screen onto his palm. “Here’s Cloud’s number, you should call him,” she smiled.

“Very funny, Aerith,” he snorted. “But I’m too busy to date and even busier to even think about a guy I met at a club, thanks.”

“ _Whatever_ ,” she clowned Squall’s catchphrase, having him rolling his eyes at her.

Before Squall could roll his real eyes at her, Aerith left the counter to clean some tables. And soon he was just staring at his phone still lit up in the contact screen, Cloud’s name in bold custom font letters.

Nah, he wouldn’t know what to say if he called, it’s better this way.

* * *

As always, work hasn’t been too bad, another god knows how many macchiatos and probably nine pink drinks later he was a free man in his programming class. As soon as Vincent’s class ended and he could already feel the softness of his bead, he left the classroom and Squall could already feel his headache coming: a.k.a. Aerith’s friend Yuffie that bothered him since she ordered a far too complicated Frappuccino at the café.

“Hey, Leon!” she came pouncing almost knocking on his empty table.

“It’s Squa-“

“So, here’s the thing! You know that me and Professor Highwind don’t exactly click in terms of what he thinks I should learn and what I want to learn, right?! Like, c’mon, old man! I don’t need to know basic math to study pedagogy, duh! Aaaaaaand, since you’re like, you know, a computer something major, I thouuuuuught that you should help me with math? More in the ‘I’ll let you copy my homework’ kind of deal?” she went on and on talking, half through it Squall had given up and shut down his brain. But Yuffie could sense this kind of thing, reaffirming her presence by putting her hands in prayer in Squall’s face, she started: “Please please please please please, pretty please, Leon!”

“First, of all, it’s Squall, and second, if you don’t know basic math, you’re beyond my help, so here, and don’t bother me,” he just tossed her a folder full of math pages and she caught on air like it was the last droplet of water in the world 

“Thanks, Leon!” she jumped and ran to god knows where to copy the homework before Cid’s class.

“Squall…”

Trying to correct his name in vain, he dead walked to the cafeteria, he still had an hour to kill before Cid’s class, might as well get either some homework done or some coffee. Way too concentrated on whatever romantic scenario his brain was playing in his head, Squall was way too slow to dodge having a conversation with the clown troublemaker of college. Before he came back to Earth, Reno already had his arms around his shoulders and was pulling him to the parking lot that stayed between the cafeteria and some campus buildings.

“Hey, Leon! I was looking for you all over the place, ya’ know?”

“Gods, not you too,” Squall sighed, it was just like Yuffie all over again. “What do you want, Reno? You know Aerith won’t let you have coffee for free.”

“I’m hurt, okay? Who do you think I am, Leon? Someone who only comes to you, my dear friend, for coffee favors? That is mean, man,” he sounded way to dramatic even for Squall’s eyeroll. “But anyway! I and Rude are having kind of a tech problem, and since you are a computer something major, thought you could help a pal out,” Reno’s signature smile said everything, he was way too similar to Yuffie for Squall’s personal taste.

He sighed. “What kind of favor, Reno?”

By this point, Reno had already dragged poor Squall all through the parking lot, getting to his beat-up car with flaked red paint. Reno’s younger cousin, the one who seemed to be Reno’s shadow following him around, was inside the car listening to his mp3 player. On the other side, Rude was talking to someone, although Squall couldn’t see who it was.

Reno opened the passenger door and took his laptop out from his school bag, or what was left from the laptop. He might as well have sold the computer parts for some money because there was no saving that piece of junk.

“Okay, yea, it looks bad, but it works, well, it _worked_.”

“You’re not making me fix that, right?”

“Can you?” he sounded hopeful but scrapped the idea quickly. “That’s not what this is about, anyway, it used to work but I was doing some safe web browsing and _somehow,_ I got a virus, can you believe that? Funny story, really, that Google website might not be that safe afterward.”

Squall took a really long look at that laptop. He would probably format it, install an antivirus, and be done in like 20 minutes. And then he took a long look at Reno’s face. This guy knew nothing about computers, was it really fair to scam him?

“I’ll do it for 50 bucks.”

Yes, yes it was fair to scam him.

“FIFTY BUCKS? You kidding me, Leonhart?!”

“That’s my price, good luck finding someone else to take care of your porn virus,” Squall shrugged and was already turning his heels to leave when Reno’s hands grabbed his shoulder.

“Wait a second! Who said I wasn’t paying, huh?”

Reno pushed the beat-up laptop onto Squall’s hands and looked in his pockets for some money. Of course, he found only 5 bucks and a cigarette. He made a stop hand gesture to Squall, asking him to wait. He then walked around the car to find Rude and whoever Rude was talking to. And standing there, next to an 11-year-old redhead with earphones, Squall knew that there was no more time for homework or coffee today.

“Hey, Cloud? Got 45 bucks to help a pal out?”

Frozen there with the leftovers of a computer, Squall thought to himself, _there are many people named Cloud, it isn’t that big of a deal_.

“Why don’t you get a job so you can stop asking me for money?”

Sure, his voice was pretty similar, but, hey, it was a loud club, Squall probably got that part wrong too.

“Maybe I’ll start working at that club you go to so you’ll be forced to tip me good to get even a water bottle.”

There are a lot of clubs out there. This is a college city!

“Why do you need 45 bucks anyway? It’s not like you’re paying rent or something.”

“Okay, listen, ouch! I’m almost like a dad to my cousin, those sea-salt ice creams aren’t cheap, ‘kay? But no, I need it so my friend can fix my laptop, I still need it for e-mails and stuff,” as he spoke, Squall could hear that his voice was getting closer, meaning that either he was coming to get Squall his money or that Cloud was coming to get Squall his money.

He had probably 5 milliseconds to decide what to do: run? Hide? Actually, talk to him like a normal person and pretend he doesn’t know Cloud? Punch him? So many good options. But before Squall could even start to weigh the pros and cons, Reno was coming his way with Cloud on his heels right behind him. Luckily Squall had a professional poker face anyway.

“This is my good friend Leon!” he again put his arms around Squall’s shoulders. “Leon, this is my loan shark, Cloud!”

What Reno did not expect is that Squall and Cloud just stared at each other, both surprised to see the other outside of a nighttime environment, but each with a poker face so hard to decode that they might as well have been staring at a wall instead.

“Nice to meet you, Cloud,” he was the first to open his mouth so Reno wouldn’t catch anything wrong in the air. The last thing he needed was someone else bothering him about this.

“Nice to meet you, _Squall_ ,” Cloud nodded.

“Hey, don’t you have a computer problem too, Cloud? I betcha Leon here could help you out with that and then he could give me a discount on my bill as a thank you,” thankfully he was way too airheaded to notice anything except himself.

“Sure, why not? What’s your computer issue?” and _that_ made Reno raise an eyebrow at Squall because he knew that the brunette was way too stubborn to agree to something that easily, especially to fix a stranger’s computer.

“That’s a good question, I’ve given up on that machine, it only slowed me down,” Cloud shrugged, and Reno raised another eyebrow. Cloud was never this nice? To a stranger of all people?

“I can take a look at it if you want, where is it?”

“It’s not a laptop, so it’s back at Tifa’s bar. If you’re free, I can take you there now to look at it.”

“I don’t have a class for a while now, so whatever, where is that bar?”

“I can give you a ride there,” Cloud pointed back to his motorcycle.

Squall would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel something when he saw that bike.

“Cool,” with every ounce of courage he had, Squall started walking towards Cloud’s motorcycle with him following along quickly.

Cloud gave Squall the spare helmet and then climbed up the bike, the brunette climbing up behind him. Soon the motorcycle roared to life and both of them vanished from Reno’s vision.

Reno stood there for a second, next to Rude, just in shock at what he just saw.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea where i'm going wih this, i just wanted to write so we could have more strifehart content honestly,,,, 
> 
> also some notes about the AU setting!!   
> it's set in 2010 in modern Radiant Garden.   
> legal drinking age and driving age in this AU's Radiat Garden is 18 (just like where I'm from, aka Brazil).   
> Squall is 18, Cloud is 22, Aerith is 23, Tifa is 21 and Reno is 28.   
> they're all basically a year older than their original game ages. 
> 
> thanks for reading!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> It's been 5? 6? years since I wrote any fanfic, especially in English, so I apologize for the quality of this, but this idea kept living rent-free in my mind and I had to write something about it!!!!   
> Hope you enjoyed it!!


End file.
